GOOGLE TO INVEST FUNDS TO DEVELOP 20,000 NEW HOMES IN SAN FRANCISCO BAY

Google’s funds would go toward creating roughly 68% of the number of units the Bay Area needs to build each year to meet population growth. Photograph: Mike Koozmin/AP

A region plagued by homelessness crisis in the San Francisco Bay Area will get a $1bn fund from google to fight tech-fueled housing crisis. The $1bn will be used for the development of 20,000 new homes as the company prepares to expand its headquarters in Mountain View offices in San Francisco along with new campuses in San Jose and Sunnyvale.

Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai wrote in a Tuesday’s blog announcement that as Google work to build a more helpful company, they know that their responsibility to help should start at home where everything began 20 years ago, in the San Francisco Bay Area. At least $750m of Google’s land will be repurposed into a residential housing of 15,000 homes which was used as office or commercial space.

The rest of the money will be used for an investment fund as an incentive to build 5,000 affordable housing across the market. Furthermore, additional $50m has been pledged in grants through Google.org to non-profit-groups focused on homelessness.

From 2007 to 2014, the Bay Area has struggled to meet its housing needs in which the nine counties of the Bay Area only permitted 57% of the number units to meet population growth. Google is now vowing to take care of 68% of the 29.500 new homes needed in the area each year.